


in my crown, i am king

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Series: Dark Month Collection [23]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Genie/Djinn, Dark Month, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here's what he remembers: the sun rising, blazing on the horizon, a flash of color and heat that made the air go distorted in the distance. The feel of one of Aadi's elephants nudging him, its wiry hair itchy when it pressed its trunk to his arm, the chalk decorating its body leaving streaks of bright color across his face. Gayatri's smile, her children clustered around her legs. A syahgosh with her kittens just outside of the village, their golden bodies catching the rays of the sun. He remembers the trip to Jaisalmer and the guest house he'd stayed in—orange curtains and sandstone walls, a cool refuge from the heat outside. He doesn't quite remember the journey to Kuldhara, just that his camel had been irritated the whole time. He remembers the last quide he'd had, his bright grin as they conversed in broken English and Hindi.</p><p>He remembers that the ruins were beautiful, even if they were cursed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in my crown, i am king

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Dark Month](http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/dark+month). Day 15, starring Axel as a djinn. Full prompt is [here](http://i886.photobucket.com/albums/ac67/Uffa__/banners%20Lj/Screenshots/Mo10_zpsb991cd6d.jpg). I kind of borrowed bits of djinn lore from Supernatural and The Bartimaeus Trilogy, then combined that with various myths and my own ideas. Writing this was a lot of fun, because I got to spend twice as much time researching India as I did writing the actual fic. I saved some of the links that helped me out a bit. First, the wikipedia pages for [Jaisalmer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaisalmer) and the [Thar Desert](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thar_Desert). Next is an [article and some pictures from Hampi](http://almostfearless.com/2011/04/29/the-ruins-of-vijayangara-hampi-india/) which is crazy cool, notable for it's covering of the Ruins of Vijayangara. These are [some pictures of Jaisalmer](http://www.holidaycheck.com/city-Travel+pictures_Jaisalmer-ch_ub-oid_13115.html?action=detail&mediaId=1160758929), including the ghost house that Roxas stays in. And finally, some [information and pictures of Kuldhara.](http://blog.chaukhat.com/2010/02/kuldhara-cursed-village-near-jaisalmer.html)

The doctors don't know what to tell him. After all, physically, there is nothing wrong with him. A bit of heat stroke, dehydration, and a strange burn on his left hip that he can't remember getting. It doesn't hurt, so Roxas isn't particularly concerned about it. He's more concerned with the lack of feeling in his legs—that the doctors are throwing around words like paralysis and possible spine damage, giving him strange looks as they go over his x-rays.  
  
He'd been doing his thesis on the Rigveda, bouncing through the major cities for the first three months before he'd settled in New Dehli for the next three. It was nice—a change from the hustle and bustle of life back home. Bread in the mornings, a sequence of stretches after, a stroll through the spice markets, and visits to various temples. The ruins were his favorite, and once the sounds of the city grew too much, he took a bus to Hampi, where he spent his days near the Virupraksha Temple.  
  
Here's what he remembers: the sun rising, blazing on the horizon, a flash of color and heat that made the air go distorted in the distance. The feel of one of Aadi's elephants nudging him, its wiry hair itchy when it pressed its trunk to his arm, the chalk decorating against it leaving streaks of bright color across his face. Gayatri's smile, her children clustered around her legs. A syahgosh with her kittens just outside of the village, their golden bodies catching the rays of the sun. He remembers the trip to Jaisalmer and the guest house he'd stayed in—orange curtains and sandstone walls, a cool refuge from the heat outside. He doesn't quite remember the journey to Kuldhara, just that his camel had been irritated the whole time. He remembers the last quide he'd had, his bright grin as they conversed in broken English and Hindi.  
  
He remembers that the ruins were beautiful, even if they were cursed.  
  
The next thing he remembers is being back in New Dehli and the doctors telling him that there wasn't anything they could do—that there was no spinal damage—nothing wrong with his legs at all, except for the fact that he couldn't move them.  
  
They ship him back to the States, bound in a wheelchair and helpless, not understanding what happened.  
  
.  
  
Sora greets him with tears in his eyes and though he doesn't say anything, his knuckles are white on the handles of Roxas' wheelchair the entire way back to the car.  
  
.  
  
"I knew I shouldn't have let you go," their mother shrieks.  
  
Their father is a stone statue at her side, but once she leaves the room in a huff, he stoops down to Roxas' level and pulls him in for a hug. "We'll help you however we can," he says. "We love you."  
  
Roxas is quiet. He doesn't know how to tell them that there's nothing wrong with him, really, he just _can't move his lower body._  
  
Months pass, because that's how time works. For Roxas, it feels like it has stopped—that time no longer exists, but around him, it moves on. He stays with Sora, because the week he'd stayed with their parents had been disastrous. He does know that they love him, but his mother has never dealt with grief well and their father doesn't quite know how to deal with their mother.  
  
So he camps out on Sora's couch and watches his brother's life move forward.  
  
.  
  
Kairi and Riku move in a year after Roxas had, their laughter bright and happy, echoing through the house the way that the sound of the wind had in Jaisalmer. They're lovely people, and what's more is that they make his brother happy—Sora's eyes more alive than they've been in ages.  
  
He spends three weeks making charms with Kairi, eating the food that Riku has made him, and trying not to be jealous of his brother's happiness.  
  
It doesn't work.  
  
On week four, he hauls himself into his wheelchair, and gets the papers sorted with his college.  
  
Week five has him back in the dorms at school, but a first floor room this time rather than a third.  
  
.  
  
He finishes his thesis, though it isn't just about the Rigveda anymore, rather about life in India as a whole. He writes about the way the sun had set the horizon on fire, and is hit by a wave of nostalgia so strong that it has him hunching over, his hands folded over his stomach.  
  
Some days he thinks he misses India more than he misses having functional legs.  
  
.  
  
Time goes on.  
  
He graduates, gets his ph.D, and gets a job as a world religions professor.  
  
.  
  
He is thirty-two years old and his brother is getting married. Kairi looks gorgeous in her dress, her face lit up, happiness catching.  
  
Riku is Sora's best man, standing next to him with a proud grin, his silver hair held back in a sleek ponytail.  
  
For a while, Roxas considers being jealous of him—jealous that Sora didn't pick him for this, like his disability has somehow made him incapable of being there for his brother. Roxas is far from stupid though and the moment he gets to the chapel he knows why it's Riku rather than him.  
  
Maybe the rest of their guests overlook the slim, silver ring on Riku's index finger—a match for Sora's in silver rather than gold, but Roxas doesn't.  
  
.  
  
Ten years after India, the burn mark on his hip starts to bleed.  
  
.  
  
He thinks about going to the hospital, but dismisses the thought immediately. That first day he presses a square of gauze to the mark, taping it down until he's sure that the waistband of his slacks won't dislodge it, and goes to class like things are normal. He's covering Taoism this week, _Tao Te Ching_ specifically, and would much rather see his students struggling with the texts rather than spend the day in the hospital with doctors who have no idea what's wrong with him.  
  
The next day is a Saturday, and when he wakes up with the bandage soaked through, he leaves it off. He lets the blood soak into a rattier pair of jeans and watches the sunrise through his kitchen window, slowly sipping on a morning cup of coffee.  
  
.  
  
Sunday he wakes strangely, lethargically crawling from sleep to the sensation of something lapping at his hip—like a cat, its tongue like sandpaper.  
  
He smells dust and spices in the air, and underneath that, an overwhelming tang of blood, smoke, and fire.  
  
He doesn't want to open his eyes.  
  
He doesn't want to—  
  
He doesn't—  
  
He opens his eyes.  
  
.  
  
The creature has its eyes slitted half open, startlingly green, its pupils slit like a cats. Its curled around him, legs entwined with his, an arm thrown possessively around his waist. Its only half dressed, dark red churidars clinging tightly to its hips. There's a sherwani laid out across the dresser, though, red and gold stitching in elaborate patterns, reminding him so very strongly of Aadi that he feels sick.  
  
"Hello, lovely," it whispers, curling tighter around him, like a snake set out to choke the breath from its prey.  
  
"I missed you," it says, dragging its tongue over his mark one more time.  
  
Roxas twitches as it crawls its way up his body, until its so close that Roxas can _feel_ the absence of its breath.  
  
"You're so beautiful," it says, tracing patterns over his jugular, grinning that cat-like smile.  
  
"What do you want?" he finally demands, hoping that his voice isn't as shaky as it seems.  
  
Its smile grows.  
  
"I want you, of course," it says. "You didn't really think you'd be rid of me that easily, did you?"  
  
And just like that, Roxas remembers.  
  
.  
  
Kuldhara was hot, but that wasn't very new. Being in the heart of the Thar Desert, Jaisalmer itself was hot, so it wasn't as if Roxas had expected anything else. The thin cotton pants and shirt helped a little bit, as did the scarf that Aadi's wife had tied around his head. She'd smiled at him and told him to take water with him and as long as he drank frequently, his guide would take care of the rest.  
  
The desert wind echoed through the ruins, howling like a demon, and if Roxas listened carefully, he could hear the sounds of children laughing. His guide tells him about the Paliwals leaving the villages over a hundred and seventy years ago, about the curse that they had left upon the place. That over the years, people had tried to make this place their home and failed. Whether they died or left, he never said.  
  
He remembers that one of the camels had spooked, his guide consoling it while Roxas ventured further into the ruins. The temple in the center of the village was breathtaking, the walls having taken a toll from the desert sands battering it, but beautiful, far more intact than the rest of the village.  
  
Inside, it smelled of spices and ash.  
  
A man peered at him from the center of the room—red hair and an eerie smile that made Roxas’s skin crawl, as if there were hundreds of bugs just out of sight.  
  
“Hello, lovely,” the man said, his smile stretching wide.  
  
There’s a legend out there, that God made humans from mud and clay, angels from light, and djinn from smokeless fire. In that moment, that story was all that Roxas could think of, the man’s eyes bright, his teeth too sharp and pointed.  
  
“What are you?” Roxas asked, edging backwards toward the doorway.  
  
The man—no, the _creature_ laughed. “You know of my kind, child,” it said, creeping closer to him. “We were here long before the humans, born of fire, the first creations.”  
  
It purred as it reached him, and up close Roxas could see the tattoos below its eyes and the ones creeping up its arms. “And then,” it breathed into Roxas’s ear, “We were banished to the shadow realm the moment you apes were created, forever doomed to watching and whispering, unable to take our planet back.”  
  
Roxas started to edge away, but it caught his jaw in one strong hand, golden and bronze bracelet jangling at its wrists. “There are special cases, however. Children who have felt the shadow’s touch before can hear us, see us, and touch us,” it said, stroking a finger along his cheek.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hissed.  
  
The creature laughed again, its voice echoing around the room as the grip on his jaw tightened uncomfortably. “Maybe not in this life,” it said. “But rest assured that the shadows have touched you, surely as I once touched you.”  
  
“You have never touched me,” Roxas growled, trying to jerk back. He managed to wrench himself out of its hold only to be caught around the waist, the creatures breath wet against his lips, body hot against his.  
  
“I have,” it said, drawing him in closer until their lips touched. “A long, long time ago, in a world that never existed. You were supposed to remember me.”  
  
“Apparently I didn’t,” Roxas murmured back, his lips dragging against the creatures.  
  
“Well then,” it said, slithering down his body and pressing a single finger to his hip. “I’ll make sure that you can’t forget this time around. You have ten years, Roxas. And then I’m coming for you.”  
  
The last thing Roxas remembered was the feeling of burning, the creatures tongue on the mark—the brand—and the smell of smokeless fire.  
  
.  
  
“Axel,” he breathes, and the creatures smile widens, eyes glowing like green fire.  
  
“Oh, so you remember me now? I’m so flattered,” it purrs, a mockery of a single moment lifetimes ago on a world that didn’t exist. “You made me a promise,” Axel says, breath hot against his lips.  
  
“That I would be waiting,” he sighs, claiming Axel’s lips.  
  
.  
  
Somewhere, there is a world where Roxas is happy. Where the wind caresses his face and he strolls through the spice markets with his lover’s hand clenched tight around his. Where they watch the horizon burn together and kiss gently beneath silk sheets.  
  
This world is a lie.  
  
But what Roxas doesn’t know won’t hurt him.  
  
.  
  
In the ruins of Kuldhara, there is a boy—emaciated and bleeding with a smile on his face.  
  
The boy is dreaming.  
  
A demon watches him dream, sipping at his life force like nectar.  
  
You can't escape a djinn once its claimed you.


End file.
